As Warner Brothers and DC begin the process of building towards a Justice League film, they've got a little clean up duty to do first. The Batman side of things is in a place of total flux, with Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale departing after The Dark Knight Rises. Man of Steel is an unknown commodity at this point, with an unproven star in Henry Cavill. And then there's Green Lantern, which was supposed to be their lynchpin, with red hot Ryan Reynolds as the face of the movement. Then Green Lantern turned out to be one big costly disaster, and now Warner Brothers is stuck on what to do with him next.
In a new story by Variety discussing Warner Brothers' plans to utilize the wide DC stable of heroes, they note that the studio is considering whether or not to even bring Reynolds back for a sequel, or just to reboot the character entirely. Michael Goldenberg was hired two years ago to pen the follow-up, but he's recently been tapped to take on the Wonder Woman script. You can hardly blame the studio for having cold feet. Nobody had a worse 2011 than Reynolds did, and since fans aren't invested in Green Lantern right now, there probably won't be any complaints if they start over from scratch.
In much brighter news, the story also confirms a number of projects that have been talked about in the past. Along with the previously confirmed Lobo, Wonder Woman, and Flash movies, you can also count on seeing Suicide Squad, Aquaman, Green Arrow, and Shazam. We've written about practically all of these films in the past, so it's good to know those rumors have proven to be true.
Last I heard about a Flash movie, Greg Berlanti(Life As We Know It) was circling the director's chair, with a script by Marc Guggenheim and Michael Green. Shazam was announced three years ago, with DC Comics superstar Geoff Johns co-writing. The most violent of all of these would be Suicide Squad, which pits a team of villains working under the employ of the government and given approval to use whatever force necessary to stop dangerous threats. Talk of that film emerged in 2009, and at the time had Justin Marks(Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li) on board to write. 2015 was going to be the year for Aquaman, and I guess there's still an outside shot it could happen if Warner Brothers gets on the ball.
There's a good chance none of those players are still involved with those films, so don't hold any of it as gospel. Whatever path the studio decides to go in, it's clear Christopher Nolan is going to be a factor. They've been leaning on him more and more, wrapping up Batman and now producing Man of Steel. Even though he doesn't have a deal in place with Warner Brothers right now, they're willing to put all their hopes of beating Marvels squarely on his shoulders.
